What’s Going On In Dick Tracy? Why did the crook warehouse burn down? July – September 2023

Leech Madsen set it on fire. The recently-concluded story in Mike Curtis, Shelley Pleger, and Shane Fisher’s Dick Tracy climaxed, in part, with a fire at the telemarketing scam shop that the schizophrenic Audie runs. It starts in the server room. Madsen seems to have started the fire and then go to shake down Audie for the rest of the money to be had. This seems like a poor plan to me, as Madsen went and got lost in the chaos of the fire. But we have to allow even villains blackmailing other villains to sometimes make bad decisions.

Hope you enjoy catching up to early October, now. If you’re reading around December, I expect to have my next Dick Tracy plot recap done. That essay, and all my Dick Tracy recaps, should be at this link. And now, the story.

Dick Tracy.

9 July – 30 September.

Sprocket “Susan” Nitrate, onetime film scammer turned girlfriend of author Adam Austin, had a temp job working for a telemarketing scam firm. The boss, Audie, who keeps having movie-quote conversations with imaginary figures, has other stuff going on. He’d sent ‘Leech’ Madsen to pay off Anders, the guy who’d been supplying stolen telecommunications equipment. Madsen shot him, instead, and pocketed the payoff. And figures to get back to Audie and collect his own payoff too.

From there, though, we have a surprisingly direct plot. Dick Tracy and Sam Catchem hit up their street sources, looking for places that might be housing a suspicious lot of activity. This leads them to a recently-evacuated warehouse, the spot where Audie set up before moving above the TV station, the only other working building in the neighborhood. They also check security camera footage, good detective work that leads nowhere.

Mike Curtis and Shelley Pleger’s Dick Tracy for the 9th of August, 2023. An aspect of this story I like is that Susan/Sprocket’s an experienced enough hand at this that everybody recognizes she should be let to run things, especially in an emergency. It’s a subtle beat of how authority will break free of formal structure.

Anders, in the hospital, recovers enough to start naming names. The cops announce their lead on the shooting to the press. This gives Sabrina, the boss’s right-hand competent person, the tip-off to evacuate. And Susan discovers another reason to evacuate: the server room is on fire! And, more, Madsen is back, holding a gun on Audie. It’s all a big confusing mess. Madsen flees, but in the smoke and confusion ends up running into Dick Tracy and Sam Catchem. Madsen keeps on fleeing, eventually running into the Abandoned Blade Runner Building. Worse, the floor he climbs to collapses. He’s lucky to not fall directly onto a heap of concrete blocks and wood shards and rebar, but because he lands in a great heap of pigeon droppings.

Meanwhile, the fire. Susan (remember her?) oversees evacuating the telemarketing lair. And she leads Sabrina and Audie through the sewers finding, in the end, an abandoned lair with power and water. They thank her; Susan promises to not remember her at all.

Mike Curtis and Shelley Pleger’s Dick Tracy for the 23rd of August, 2023. Also an interesting beat: Susan gets away with her part in this scam. She’s among the few Dick Tracy villains to get away with it, and to have no obvious reason why she wouldn’t continue to. (The Pouch is the other one who comes to mind. He got away with using a popcorn maker to shoot a guy, back in the 70s, so he’s probably escaped justice? We’ll see.)

After a heck of a day at work Susan returns to her and Adam’s hotel room. Adam’s book contract thingy went well, and he’s ready to take an overseas vacation. Susan, equipped with a fresh forged passport, is ready to go too. The story comes to its happy end the 16th of September.

Although that was after a 15-day pause for another Minit Mystery. From the 27th of August guest writer Eric Costello and guest artist Mike Sagara told a little puzzle about a murder of a Knights baseball player at Weeghman Park. Get the references?

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The current story started the 17th of September and it’s looking like a nice little murder mystery. Someone killed Wilhelmina Caxton, yet another friend of the mayor’s, so you know there’s pressure to get answers quickly. No sign of forced entry, no sign of struggle, just stab wounds to the chest. Missing: a late 13th century manuscript.

Also dead: Dr Aldus Manutius of the Pfister Institute, who hadn’t been seen in eleven months or so but you know how these Institutes are, everyone figured he was busy on something or other. He’s also dead by stabbing. He had been cataloguing medieval manuscripts, last anyone saw him. And that’s what we know for now.

Next Week!

What is Wales going to do with all these Saxon invaders? Also, can we maybe use the seas to feed people? I check out Mark Schultz and Thomas Yeates’s Prince Valiant if all goes to plan.